We had more than 2,000 people use RaceJoy for its GPS live runner/walker tracking on Sunday, September 20. RaceJoy’s app was well used, with 21,550 views of the home pages for these races within RaceJoy. Runners and walkers used RaceJoy for its live phone tracking, GPS-based progress alerts sent from every mile point on the course and fun audio cheer sending.

Participants who used RaceJoy received audio progress alerts at every mile along the course using RaceJoy’s GPS-based Progress Alert system that provided their pace and estimated finish time. This feature was in high demand; 15,000 progress alerts were sent through RaceJoy to participants and their supporting fans. Participants also opted in to have their progress automatically posted on their Facebook and Twitter feeds while they ran the race.

One of the great things about RaceJoy is that no matter where you are, friends and family can show support and share in the race experience, even if they can’t make it to the race site. We had remote spectators from 34 states across the U.S. and from eight additional countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Canada, Cyprus and Denmark.

Remote Spectators Using RaceJoy to Support Runners on September 20, 2015.

Spectators made full use of RaceJoy – race participants had, on average, at least one person tracking them in RaceJoy. Friends and family further showed their support by sending 2,400 audio cheers to race participants with cheers like You Can Do It!, Chin Up and Go Get Em!.

The Fifth Third Capital City River Run was the first race to offer RaceJoy for free to participants and spectators. Learn more about this here. Typically participants and spectators pay a 99 cents per race upgrade fee. The Capital City River Run had the highest usage across the entire weekend, with more than 900 users and 8,000+ progress alerts issued. The Rochester Marathon was a close second with 800 users and 5,200+ progress alerts issued.

RaceJoy users this weekend posted more than just their progress alerts to Facebook and Twitter:

Heidi Bogan: @RaceJoy what a great app! Timely and accurate! #CapitalCityRiverRun

The key factor we see for usage consistently comes down to promotion (of course, it doesn’t hurt if it is for free!). We have found that the more race participants know that live tracking is available in RaceJoy, the more they will use it. These races all promoted RaceJoy to their participants through various efforts such as posting information about RaceJoy on their websites, enabling the RaceJoy widget for their registration web page, sending emails, posting on their social media walls, etc.

These four races also had the common factor of being RunSignUp registration customers. RaceJoy is a RunSignUp product and is available for all races regardless of the registration provider. However, RunSignUp customers benefit from a deeper integration for things like loading information within RunSignUp’s dashboard, automatic RaceJoy promotion within registration web pages, and registration links within the RaceJoy app.

RunSignUp customers can easily “RaceJoy Ready” their race through RunSignUp’s dashboard. Non RunSignUp customers simply need to send their request to AddRace@RaceJoy.com. Race organizers and sponsors can buyout the live phone tracking and pricing starts at $450. To learn more about the buyout options available, Click Here.